Elizabeth O’Donnel is a DC teacher at the District of Columbia Public Schools that decided to publicly share the heartbreaking loss of her baby in an attempt to ensure future expectant moms who deliver a stillborn child not to experience the same frustrations she did.
As it turns out, O’Donnel was denied paid leave after she delivered a stillborn baby and she claims DC’s paid family leave policy is ‘essentially punishing’ her for not leaving the hospital with her child.
She said in her post that she shared both on Instagram and Facebook that DC government policy denies her paid family leave of 8 weeks for postpartum recovery because she cannot provide a birth certificate for her daughter.
Unfortunately, she can’t provide her cremation papers too, but that doesn’t make a difference in their decision.
Advertisement
As reported by local news network WDVM, O’Donnel had already been approved to take paid maternity leave by her employer, DC Public Schools, and The Paid Leave Act, which Washington D.C. began implementing in July 2020.
Eligible workers in DC are to be provided with up to eight weeks of paid parental leave following a qualifying parental leave event. The law vaguely defines this as ‘events, including bonding, associated with the birth of a child, the placement of a child with an eligible individual for adoption, or the placement of a child with an eligible individual for whom the eligible individual legally assumes and discharges parental responsibility.
So, when O’Donnel’s midwife recommended that she use the eight weeks of paid leave as she’d already been approved to take them, O’Donnel figured that it would be easy to alert her employer due to her change of circumstance. She didn’t expect to encounter any problem, but it turns out that they told her that she was no longer eligible for the paid family leave.
It was shocking and hurtful for her.
Apparently, DC Public Schools told her that she would only be ‘caring for herself’ rather than a child when they denied her paid leave request.
O’Donnel now hopes that her story will grab the attention of Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and inspire the lawmakers to amend The Paid Leave Act to include parents who deliver stillbirth to children.
Source: Romper
